Even though he’s going to be the GOP nominee, it’s still difficult for me to take Donald Trump seriously. Not because I don’t think he’d be a horrific disaster for this country, but because his whole campaign has been such an absurd cartoon-ish spectacle it’s sometimes difficult for me to believe this hasn’t been one really long SNL skit.

While I can believe many Republican voters are ignorant enough to support Trump – it’s hard to wrap my mind around how many people don’t see through his bulls*t. He doesn’t even try to hide the fact that he knows his supporters aren’t very bright. Hell, he flat-out treats them like idiots.

1. He lies all the time: To be someone who lies as often as Trump does – especially the way he lies – you can’t do that if you have respect for those supporting you. All politicians lie, mislead or distort the truth in some ways, that’s just politics — but Donald Trump seems to live in a world where facts simply don’t matter. He literally just seems to make up whatever the hell he wants to and no matter what evidence you use to counter his propaganda, it doesn’t faze him one bit. Sadly, the more he lies, the more his supporters rally behind him.

2. Nearly everything Trump spews is a soundbite or a talking point with almost no actual substantive details: Again, all politicians have talking points and phrases they often repeat, that’s nothing new. However, Donald Trump has essentially built an entire campaign on nothing but soundbites and talking points without providing any actual details as to how he’d accomplish any of it. He just tells mobs of angry people what they want to hear and they never question it. Honestly, do people really think he’s going to build some ridiculously unrealistic wall paid for by the Mexican government and deport 12 million people?

Wait, sadly – they do.

3. He changes his mind whenever he wants and they don’t seem to care: In 2012, Mitt Romney developed the reputation as someone who flip-flopped… constantly. Donald Trump has taken flip-flopping to a whole new level. In fact, he recently said that essentially everything on which he’s campaigning should simply be treated as a “suggestion.” Nothing quite like a presidential candidate basing his whole campaign around some of the most radical promises in modern political history — who then says everything he’s been saying is “just a suggestion.” You really do have to believe those backing you are buffoons to feel like you could get away with that.

4. Remember that time he actually admitted that he knows his supporters aren’t very bright?: A few months ago Trump literally saidthat he knew he could shoot someone in the middle of New York city and probably not lose any support. Again, how little do you have to think of your supporters to believe that, no matter what you do, they’re going to support you anyway? Not only that, but how dumb do you have to be to be called an idiot by the person you’re supporting for president while still supporting his candidacy?

5. He programs and conditions his supporters like animals: When Trump says things like “Lyin’ Ted,” “Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Bernie” or accuses Jeb Bush of being “low energy,” these are textbook cases of him trying to program his supporters to equate a word or label with a particular person. He’s basically treating his supporters like dogs who need training on how to poop outside instead of on the kitchen floor.

6. He’s not even a good liar: Maybe I’m just lucky, but I can usually spot sleazy salespeople. When someone is trying to con me into something that’s obviously not true, it’s like a flashing red light going off in front of me that reads, “This person is full of crap, run away!” When I watch Trump speak, that’s exactly what I see. If you pay attention to any of his speeches, you can almost see him trying to think of what lie to say next to “sell” people on whatever nonsense he’s trying to push. At times I’m almost waiting for him to try to sell me a Slap Chop or a Shake Weight.

7. Not once has he really ever hidden the fact that he’s a thin-skinned coward who’s afraid to face actual scrutiny: Not only did he skip a crucial GOP debate because he was too scared to deal with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, but he refused to debate Sen. Ted Cruz after the Republican field had been shrunk to just three candidates. Then there’s always the recent debacle where he backed out of a debate with Bernie Sanders after all of his outrageous demands were met. Now I don’t agree with Cruz on much of anything, but he was right when he said Trump doesn’t want a debate where he has to go one-on-one with someone because he’s simply not knowledgable enough to actually be able to do so. Trump is nothing more than a cowardly loudmouth narcissist who’s built a campaign on talking points and lies.

8. He’s sold himself as a defender of veterans while lying about the money he raised and blatantly mocking anyone who’s been a POW: This is the one that bothers me the most and I think exposes the hypocrisy of the right. Say what you want about Sen. John McCain, but no one should ever mock his service to this country. You don’t have to like his politics, but you cannot deny that he risked his life for our nation. Yet, Trump’s literal words were that he doesn’t consider POWs war heroes because he “likes people who weren’t captured.” In my opinion, that one statement should disqualify him from being considered for the presidency.

Then there’s the fact that, for months, he lied about the “$6 million” he raised for veterans — that turned out to be $4.5 million. Granted, he still raised some money (though he only did it to distract from the fact he had cowardly ducked out of a presidential debate to avoid Megyn Kelly), but he still knowingly lied about how much he raised and, even as a billionaire, doesn’t seem too to willing to cut a check for the $1.5 million to fulfill the promise he’s been making to veterans this whole time.

While there are plenty more I could list, I don’t want this article to become a novel so I’ll cut it off there.

Make no mistake about it, if Donald Trump does become president, he will have done so by not only being one of the most dishonest candidates in U.S. history, but he’ll be the first candidate who openly treated his supporters like brainless imbeciles — yet they only seemed to love him more for doing so.

Allen Clifton is a native Texan who now lives in the Austin area. He has a degree in Political Science from Sam Houston State University. Allen is a co-founder of Forward Progressives and creator of the popular Right Off A Cliff column and Facebook page. Be sure to follow Allen on Twitter and Facebook, and subscribe to his channel on YouTube as well.